@page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } fact, materialism was the ruling philosophy of life
for most Americans, with money mattering to
them more than anything else. Religion was fine
to the extent, it provided the means to prosper-
 in the form of money, health, beauty, or long
life. ‘The bulk of the [American] nation had been
taught by their faith, which was Calvinistic, that
God was behind the businessman, who in seek-
ing his self-interest was  about the welfare
of all and so contributing to human progress. This
particular religious belief, which Vivekananda
found to be ingrained in the minds of Americans
at large, was reinforced by the speculations of
Adam Smith and other classical economists, who
taught that the individual could best contribute
to the advancement of civilization by devoting
himself to moneymaking.’7 And of the money
that the Americans were making through their
materialistic attitude—a good amount of that—
in fact, millions of their dollars, they spent-
ing through their missionaries for converting
heathens in Asia and Africa and that too when
in their own country only about 46 per cent8 of
the total population belonged to some church or
the other in Christianity. For most Americans,
enjoyment was their God. As for American –
, evangelism was the name of the game.
II
In such a context, that a section of the Christian
 would seek to push through the Parlia
–
 the idea of the superiority of Christianity
over all other religions and even the finality of
Christianity in all matters of religion was not
surprising. Such parochialism, exclusivity, and
narrow-mindedness  against all that Swamiji
learned and stood for. The liberal religious at
–
 of his family, his education in English
and Sanskrit, his exposure to Western and In
–
 philosophy, particularly to Indian sacred
books, his spiritual training under his master Sri
Ramakrishna—a living embodiment of the Ve
–
 oneness, who taught him with his  ex
–
 ‘the truth that all religions were one, that
they were all paths leading to the selfsame goal,
the selfsame God’
9
and his own  of
the divinity of beings made him controvert the
narrow, parochial, and partial view of religion as
propagated by a section of the Christian .
Invariably, the theme that Swamiji offered in
–
stead to the august Parliament of Religions in
his inaugural address delivered on 11 September
1893 was the universality of religious truth to the
effect that God was in every religion, not in any particular religion to the exclusion of other –
@page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } , that purity  holiness could not be the
monopoly of any particular religion, that the end
of religion could be pursued through the path of
any religion and that exclusive claims towards 
–
 or finality of any particular path of any
particular religion brings in its wake parochial
–
ism and narrow-mindedness which, in turn, in
–
 the development of human beings. Romain
Rolland expresses universality as the character
–
 note of Swamiji’s speech as follows: ‘His
the speech was like a tongue of flame. Among the
grey wastes of cold dissertation it fired the souls
of the listening throng. … Each of the other ora
–
tors had spoken of his God, of the God of his
sect.  alone—spoke of all their Gods,
and embraced them all in the Universal Being.’
10
In an incisive analysis of the reason for un
–
charitable feelings between the followers of dif-
  presented to the Parliament on
15 September 1893, Swamiji observed that the
reason lay in the insularity of the religious out
–
look of the followers. Having lived in the little
world of her or his faith, a follower takes her or
his little world as the whole world and tends to
become intolerant of people believing otherwise.
Such an attitude born of little mentality taken to
the  produces fanaticism. The solution
to such problem, said Swamiji, lay in the 
–
 of the little mentality, of the little self
by human beings and in the embracing of their
real Self in the universal Being.
It is only by embracing the real and the uni-
versal in us that we truly develop ourselves as
human beings. This is the theme that Swamiji
developed more fully in his presentation before
the Parliament on 19 September 1893 whereby he taught human beings everywhere as to how
@page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } best they could bring about their highest 
–
 as human beings by orienting religion to
that end. That human soul is the manifestation
of the universal soul and that human being in its
essential nature is the ever-existing Atman liv
–
ing in a body—is the main thrust of Swamiji’s
teaching in this regard. The body dies but the
soul does not. However, the soul goes on 
–
ing. As a body acquires certain tendencies from
heredity, so a soul acquires certain tendencies
through its past actions and by the law of affinity
finds its new  in a body which is the fittest
an instrument for the display of these tendencies.
This process of evolution for the soul goes on till
it becomes one with the universal soul.
If by the law of causation, by past actions, so
to say, the human soul goes on evolving, then, is
there no escape from this or hope ever for human
beings to be free from a seemingly endless cycle
of causation? Swamiji’s answer is that the human
soul, in its essence, though being ever free, un–bounded, holy, pure, and perfect, is somehow overtaken by . Thus, being oblivious of its
real nature, it comes under the bondage of matter.
As such, human beings who in their real nature
are divinities on earth, begin to think of them–selves as sheep, though, in the essence of their nature, they are lions. Having thus  the
nature of human beings, Swamiji exerted them
to come up in  of their true nature. To
quote his inspiring words: ‘Come up, O lions,
and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you
are souls immortals, spirits free, blest and –; ye , ye are not bodies; matter
is your servant, not you the servant of matter.’11
So, human beings need not despair. They can
escape from the ‘endless’ prison of cause and ef-
 by  their true nature as divinities on earth. Such  can be pursued through
@page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } non-discrimination, psychic control, selfless love,
or selfless work. Through steadfast living and
the manifestation of the divinity within, by any of
these means, human beings will gradually become
pure and divine and will eventually attain liber–
 from the bonds of imperfection, which will
bring about one’s oneness with the universal soul.
Swamiji assures human beings and asserts that it
is possible to attain oneness with the universal
soul even in this life itself (1.13) through constant
struggles to that end. Thus, as per Swamiji’s for–
, becoming one with the universal soul
or experiencing the Absolute constitutes the core
of religion. As he asserts, Advaita is the only lo–
the  conclusion of Religion: ‘Science has proved
to me, that physical individuality is a delusion,
that really my body is one little continuously
changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter,
and Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion
with my other counterpart, soul’ (1.14).
So far as the ultimate goal is concerned, sci-
 and religion are both striving for the 
, that is, perfect unity. As Swamiji pointed
out, Chemistry was in search for that one–
ent—out of which all others could be made.
Physics was in search for that one  of
which all the others are manifestations. Religion
was engaged in a similar enterprise—being in the
search for that One who is the constant basis of
an ever-changing world, the one soul of which all
other souls are but manifestations. In both sci-
 and religion, it is through ‘multiplicity and
duality, that the ultimate unity is reached’ (1.15).
Swamiji did not deny the multiplicity of –
. It was his firm view nevertheless that –
, ideally speaking, should be universal in the
following respects. In embracing every human
being from the lowest to the highest, in denying
any place whatsoever to persecution or –
ance in religion, in  divinity in every
woman and man, and in aiding humanity to re–
 its own true, divine nature (1.19).
In giving the Parliament of Religions the –
 of religion, Swamiji gave to humanity at large
a new concept of the human being and religion;
that in its true nature, the human being is –
ing but God, and that the human  highest
development and true  lies in the –
 of inherent and intrinsic divine nature and
in helping one  one’s own true nature. Reli-
, in the ultimate analysis, is nothing but –
. Swamiji’s concept of religion, which links
up the two concepts of divinity and development
in respect of humans in a positive and progressive
the relationship is his special contribution at once to
the thoughts on religion and human development.
III
In proclaiming through the Parliament to all the
people of the world, the sovereignty of human nature, and in charting out the course of all
@page { margin: 2cm } p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120% } humans towards the progressive  of
divinity, Swamiji, the unknown wandering monk
of India, became a world figure and he came to be
known ever since as one who gave to the world
the doctrine of the divinity of human beings. Did
America ever learn anything like this before, and
that too, from a ‘despised’ Hindu, or a ‘degraded
heathen’? The answer is given good sound
 Mr. Merwin-Marie Snell, President
of the Scientific Section of the Parliament of Re
–
. Being an eyewitness to the Swamiji’s –
 in the Parliament and  called him
on that count ‘the most popular and influential
man in the Parliament’ and ‘indeed a prince
among men’, Mr. Snell observed: ‘Intense is the
astonished admiration which the personal pres-
 and bearing and language of Paramahamsa
Vivekananda have wrung from a public accus-
 to think of Hindus—thanks to the fables
and half-truths of the missionaries—as ignorant
and degraded “heathen”; there is no doubt that
the continued interest is largely due to a genu–
 hunger for the spiritual truths which India
through him has offered to the American people.
… America thanks India for sending him.’12
The American press and well-known –
 echoed the observations of Merwin-Marie Snell. The New York Herald , for example, wrote:
‘He [Vivekananda] is , the great-est figure in the Parliament of Religions. After “We’re sending it to the stupid to hear him -“–
 to this learned nation’ (1.428). If such
the approbation of the West indicated anything it
was this—that Swamiji raised degraded India—
the slave of foreign conquerors for the last thou-
 years, and the despised Hindu immensely
in the eyes of the world, particularly the West.
And he raised India no less in her own eyes. 
 the Indians back the belief in themselves.
They now knew that they too were capable 
 great things. Apart from restoring 
 as a nation, Swamiji gave back to 
 sense of pride in her  and culture.
Indeed, the doctrine of the divinity of human
beings that he offered to the world as the new
mantra for the development of human beings
was now  as the distinct contribution
of India to the world. Such  estimation of
India found reflections in the words of a man
who, after hearing Swamiji in the Parliament of
 said in amazement: ‘That man a –
then … and we send missionaries to his people.
“It would be more appropriate that they would send”
missionaries to us’ (1.429). What follows from all this in conclusion is
that Swamiji’s addresses at the Parliament of Reli-
 is a crucial historical document—invaluable
for understanding his life and works, invaluable
 –“For its significance as a turning point -“
tory of modern India, and also invaluable for
marking the rise of a new spiritual wave in the
history of the world, and drawing the attention
of humanity to this philosophy of religion that
the human being is to become divine, that such is
the human being’s entitlement and ultimate des-
, and that the whole purpose of religion
is to help the human being reach that ultimate
destination or that acme of perfection.
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